‘Trouble with the Curve’ trailer adds Clint Eastwood to the Best Actor race

So it turns out Clint Eastwood was just kidding when he indicated that “Gran Torino” would be his final on-screen work. A solid Best Actor push from Warner Bros. that year didn’t yield pay dirt, but it got the conversation chugging that the studio is sure to use again this year: He may have four Oscars, but he’s never won for acting.

With that in mind, “Trouble with the Curve,” from director Robert Lorenz (a homegrown Eastwood guy who’s worked with the icon for years), could be a means to that end. The new trailer — serendipitously launched on the 20th anniversary of “Unforgiven” — plays it light but “meaningful” with its tease of an aging baseball scout (Eastwood) and his relationship with his daughter (Amy Adams) on a road trip.

Will this be the one? We’ll have to see. The film isn’t set for the fall festival circuit, though as I recently indicated, it could turn up at Telluride with a tribute for the actor to kick-start the campaign. It’s set for a September 21 release, just three weeks after the Venice/Telluride/Toronto corridor closes and just before NYFF (which, on its 50th anniversary, is looking at a thin field to choose from for openers and centerpiece screenings).

Warner Bros. had a pretty heavy slate of films going into the season, but with “The Great Gatsby” shuffling off to 2013 and (though this is probably arguable to some) “The Dark Knight Rises” not looking like the Best Picture contender its predecessor was, things are beginning to clear up — ever so slightly. We’ll see how they play it.

Also: How about John Goodman’s run the last two years? Performances in two Best Picture nominees last year and supporting roles in both this and opposite Denzel Washington in “Flight” and Ben Affleck in “Argo” this year.

Check out the trailer for “Trouble with the Curve,” courtesy of Yahoo! Movies, below. And with that, we await footage from the only holdout of the season so far: Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (which will surely have its own significant Best Actor push to show for itself).